Reviews sociolinguistic research that documents BEV as distinct and internally consistent dialect/version of English –not an incorrect version of SAE.
Language and culture are inseparable
Gates focuses on the distinctive qualities of black language and literature as an expression of black experience. Studies use of black language and communal behavior – rhetoric, not linguistics. Rhetoric of speech genres, literature, conversation, social interaction that enable cultural content
Sees rhetoric as a connective force – tropes as cognitive and epistemic forms of language
The signifying monkey (trickster) is folkloric character of Yoruba mythology. Messenger who mediated between gods and men by means of tricks. Stock stories, main one with Lion and Elephant
Signifying (the act of linguistic misdirection), ironically redirects the white word for the passive act of representation – Black rhetoric shows that representing meaning is not passive (is trickery?)
The Signifying Monkey articulates contention that Black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from western or European cultural traditions that express a “tone of deafness to the black cultural voice” and would result in “intellectual racism”
Does NOT want a separate canon
Geneva Smitherman – uses semantics to emphasize deep connection between language and the contexts of its development and use and to suggest that language must be studied in use – Gates turns to rhetoric and combines rhetoric with sociolinguistic analyses of black discourse.
For Gates – rhetoric means tropes, but following Neitzsche and Derrida, Gates regards tropes as constitutive of language.
Analyzes discourse form that black dialect speakers call “signifying” – treating it as a “master trope” of black rhetoric – embodies cultural meanings and represents a complex set of social interactions.
Audience / setting/ performance – in black communities studies of speech interaction in church, street, home. Distinct difference between black rhetoric and white rhetoric is relationship between speaker and audience – much more audience response (set responses, encouragement, suggestions, nonverbal) – highly dialogic, success measured by response.
In black communities, linguistic virtuosity is highly priced. Streed is scene over verbal play (mostly male) with creates solidarity AND has a competitive edge.
Ability to rap establishes dominance, camaraderie, solidarity, and opposition to white hegemony
Black rhetoric still uses proofs, evidence appeals (ethos and pathos), metaphor –
Sociolinguists and Gates identify a large number of black speech forms as “tropes” – repetition, rhyming, and hyperbole are similar to traditional rhetorical tropes. Others, like signifying, are more like genres or modes – Bakhtin’s speech genres.
Signifying is general term for several forms of persuasion, insult, boasting, or lying all by innuendo or indirection.
With signifying goes “sounding.” -- direct insult boast or lie
Black discourse names many rhetorical devices – oral culture – internalized oppositional status in dominant culture – ethos established by linguistic heroism
Signifying as underground method of rhetorical control.
Tropes: signifying as master trope – then laying the dozens, naming, nicknaming, jargon, woofing, you’ mama, etc.
Non verbal: pitch cadence, emphasis, giving skin, etc.
Against only blacks teaching AF. Am. “ it can’t be a real subject if you have to look like the subject to be an expert in the subject.”
Black writing/oral stories as deconstructionist
Connections to Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech, a safety valve preventing violence, or a violence of rebellion on its own.
Signifier (sound image) signified (concept)
Oppositional (motivated) Ralph Ellison “signifies upon Richard Wright’s work, and Ishmael Reed upon both—create new meanings ( a type of intertextuality?)
“Thinking about the black concept of signifyin' is like stumbling unaware into a hall of mirrors” – doubled and redoubled sign – but not sign redoubled – only signifier
political and metaphysical confrontation between Afro-American and American culture
“Signifyin”(black) vs signifying (white) – double voiced word (Bakhtin – meant to hear both a version of the original AND the second speaker’s evaluation of that utterance from a different point of view)
in Black vernacular, signification = rhetorical figures over signifier
black “other’s discourse as rhetoric”
while specific terminology of black tropes may vary, the rhetorical functions of the tropes remain consistent – it is not surprising that the classical tropes also figure in BEV
double voiced nature of Signifyin --
Other Works by Gates
"Integrating the American Mind." In Covino & Jolliffe's Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries
"The "Blackness of Blackness": A Critique of the Sign and the Signifying Monkey" Critical Inquiry, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jun., 1983), pp. 685-723
Table of Contents
Analyzes rhetorical forms of Black English
Other Works by Gates
Other Suggested Reading